Introducing TermDriver

TermDriver listens on a serial line and emulates a terminal, generating output on a standard VGA connector. Its main use is to make a "real" console for embedded microcontrollers. There's nothing to set up or load for TermDriver. Because it watches the serial line at 115200 baud, any serial output from the CPU appears on the VGA. So doing something like:

  printf("Counter is %d\n", counter++);

Gives the output on the VGA:

TermDriver is an Arduino shield, so it plugs into any Arduino. However hookup is three lines (ground, power, serial) so it's easily connected to any CPU.
As well as standard 80x25 text, TermDriver can run in higher-resolution modes: 128x48, and 96x64. This last mode is "rotated", suitable for sideways monitors, and is particularly good for logging systems.

The terminal emulation is classic ANSI, so TermDriver can render all the old content from the pre-internet BBS era. There are hundreds of BBS welcome messages on textfiles.org, and they make great test cases for the terminal emulation code that's in the firmware.
TermDriver will be available in the Excamera Store in two weeks.

SpiDriver: it's real

SPIDriver, the USB-to-SPI adapter that I launched on Crowd Supply last week met its target, so is now officially a real product. I know many people on this list backed it, so thanks very much for your support. The campaign runs until Jul 13.